Chapter 4 #2
Daisy had finished her breakfast. Another cup of coffee would give her an excuse to linger in the hope of further interesting revelations. The footman had come over to remove Sally’s plate and Daisy was about to ask him to refill her cup when Baines reappeared and came up behind her.
“Mrs. Fletcher, his lordship asks if you will be so kind as to step upstairs for a word with him.”
“Of course.” Daisy was sure Lucy must have persuaded Lord Haverhill to send for Alec. She hoped she could persuade him that not even an earl could ring up Scotland Yard and order a Detective Chief Inspector as one rings the butcher to order a saddle of lamb.
She and the butler had nearly reached the door when the way was blocked by a stream of people entering.
First came a couple Daisy recalled as Mr. and Mrs. Henry Fotheringay.
They were the parents of two of the bridesmaids, she rather thought.
The next couple were Lord and Lady Carleton, parents of a third bridesmaid.
Then came Miss Flora Fotheringay, Lord and Lady Fotheringay’s eldest daughter, who owned and managed a successful interior decorating
business. A positive model for Lucy, and perhaps for Angela, Flora was also a possible article subject for Daisy. She made a mental note to find time somehow to talk to her when the first furore over the murder had died down.
After these five flocked the five indistinguishable bridesmaids, no longer giggling. Two looked frightened, two merely subdued. The fifth wore an aggrieved expression and an engagement ring, so she was Erica whose wedding, like Lucy’s, must be postponed.
Or, in Lucy’s case, cancelled. Poor Binkie!
Lucy was usually so decisive, Daisy thought, following the butler’s dignified tread up the stairs.
Why couldn’t she make up her mind whether she wanted to marry Binkie?
The reticent, unassuming Lord Gerald Bincombe had been her constant and obviously devoted escort for two or three years.
A large, calm ex-rugger Blue, his taciturn disposition led some people to think him slow-witted.
His success in the City, doing something with stocks and shares that neither Daisy nor Lucy understood, argued the contrary.
Admittedly, since the War eligible young men did not grow on trees, but Lucy had not lacked for other opportunities. In fact, she hinted that she had proposed to Binkie when that diffident young man muffed it for the third time. Why the change of heart?
“Here we are, madam.” Baines knocked on a door and opened it. “Mrs. Fletcher, my lord.”
The family sitting room Daisy entered was a complete contrast to the public rooms below.
Instead of heavy Victorian stateliness, it was all cool green and silver accented with daffodil yellow, light and airy, modern without being faddish.
Charmed, Daisy wondered whether Flora had designed it, but she had no time to study her surroundings.
“Daisy, darling!” Lucy came to meet her. “Come and tell Grandfather how to set about getting Alec here. I told him he mustn’t telephone the Home Secretary and requisition him.”
Lord Haverhill stood on the hearth with his back to a lively fire. His face was grave, but he didn’t seem unduly disturbed by his sister’s
beastly death. Of all the people Daisy had seen this morning, only Montagu was really upset. Had no one else been truly fond of Lady Eva?
“My dear Mrs. Fletcher, I shall welcome your advice,” said the Earl. “I confess I do not care for the idea of our local force infesting the house and pestering the family. Lucy assures me I shall prefer to be interrogated by your husband.”
“It’s up to the Chief Constable to call in Scotland Yard, Lord Haverhill. He won’t want to do it unless his own men feel they can’t cope with the case and ask for help. Alec says they’re reluctant to go over the heads of their people. It makes for disgruntlement, as you can imagine.”
“I see.”
“The other possibility is when a case involves more than one police jurisdiction. But you’re right in the middle of Cambridgeshire here so that won’t work.”
“Aunt Eva lived in London, though,” Lucy pointed out. “All her notes—”
“Lucy!” Age had robbed the Earl’s tone of none of its authority.
So Lady Eva had not relied on her memory, Daisy thought. Whatever Lord Haverhill hoped for in the way of concealment, the police would find her memoranda sooner or later.
“Thank you, Mrs. Fletcher, for your advice,” he went on. “I feel certain your husband is the man for the job. I’m acquainted with our Chief Constable. I’ll have a word with him on the telephone and see what can be arranged.”
He moved stiffly, even a little unsteadily, holding his faltering body together with an effort of his still strong will, towards an open connecting door.
In the next room, Daisy could see a big rosewood desk with a reading lamp, inkstand and telephone.
Beyond this a leather easy chair was visible, and part of a marble mantelpiece.
“Oh blast!” she said to Lucy in an undertone. “I wish you hadn’t talked him into this. Alec will kill me.”
“Not literally, I hope, darling. Yes, Baines?”
The butler had reappeared, the imperturbability unshaken by mere murder now visibly shaken. “The police, miss. My lord,” he raised his voice.
Lord Haverhill turned back, frowning, steadying himself with a hand on the back of a chair.
Baines continued, “I regret that one of the footmen was so ill-advised as to direct this person to find your lordship here. Meeting him upon the stair, I instructed him to return below to await your lordship’s pleasure in the library, but I fear he persisted in following me. Inspector Crumble, my lord.”
“Crummle, that’s Detective Inspector Crummle,” said the policeman irritably.
He was a plump man with a pale, doughy face from which incongruously large, wintry blue eyes regarded the world with suspicion.
They should have been small and black like currants in a suet pudding, Daisy felt.
“Pursuant to a report of murder, my lord, I proceeded here with my men, who are waiting below.” He spared a glare for Baines.
“Before instructing them to proceed with their duties, I wished to inform your lordship of my arrival and to ask whether you have any information which may enable me to bring this investigation to a rapid conclusion.”
“No.” Lord Haverhill’s curt monosyllable cleft the tide of the policeman’s verbosity.
“Then I shall proceed about my duty. I shall need a room in which to conduct my enquiries, preferably with a telephone.”
“You may use the library, Inspector.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Crummle bowed, subjected Daisy and Lucy to a rapid inspection, and departed.
“I am going to telephone the Chief Constable,” Lord Haverhill said grimly. He went through to his study.
“Not a good start,” said Daisy. “How is your grandmother taking it, Lucy? And your Uncle Aubrey and Aunt Maud?”
“Grandmama and Aunt Maud are too busy fussing over Uncle
Aubrey to get the wind up. You’d think they’d be really rattled with murder in the family. I suppose it must have been one of the family who did her in?”
“Well, it wasn’t me. One of the servants, perhaps?”
“I shouldn’t think so. As I told you, she wasn’t interested in the peccadilloes of the lower classes. Besides, the doors between the servants’ wing and the rest of the house are locked at night—a frightfully Victorian precaution against the sons of the house philandering with housemaids.”
“How on earth do you know that?”
“I heard Rupert sniggering about it once, years ago, not that I understood then what he was talking about. He said it was directed against Uncle Montie but now it was dashed inconvenient for him—for Rupert himself.”
“Oh, was he in that line?”
“Just big talk, I suspect. As far as I remember, he was only about fifteen.”
“All the same, I wonder whether Lady Eva had him written down as a womanizer.”
“He’s not much use as a suspect, darling. He wasn’t here last night. Manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain, perfectly grim! He won’t be here till tomorrow. But with the servants out of things, no doubt the rest of us are for it.”
“Yes, sir, a request from the Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire, chap I’ve worked with in the past, Sir Leonard Crowe.”
“A request specifically for Fletcher?” growled the Assistant Commissioner (Crime).
“I’m afraid so,” apologized Superintendent Crane.
“You don’t need to tell me, that woman is at it again!”
“Not exactly,” said Crane cautiously. “The sister of the Earl of Haverhill, Lady Eva Devenish, was murdered last night at his lordship’s home, also known as Haverhill. My information is that his
lordship’s granddaughter, a Miss Lucy Fotheringay, advised him to send for Fletcher. Now it happens that I remember Miss Fotheringay from Fletcher’s wedding reception … .”
“There, I knew it! If she’s not an intimate friend of the former Honourable Daisy Dalrymple, I’ll eat my hat. What’s more, I’ll bet you a fiver, Superintendent, that Mrs. Fletcher is on the spot.”
“No takers, sir.”
“What the devil made me suppose that marrying her would allow Fletcher to keep her out of mischief?”
“He would if he could, sir,” said Crane, “but he can’t.”